World Ranking update: Cottafava & Dal Corso reach top 25 for the first time

Italy’s leading men’s beach volleyball duo – Samuele Cottafava & Gianluca Dal Corso – who won last week’s Nayarit Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, reached the top 25 of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking for the first time.

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking – Men

Cottafava & Dal Corso earned 800 ranking points with their Challenge gold in Mexico last week. Meanwhile, the 460 points they had picked up at the Quintana Roo Elite exactly a year ago expired. So, as the World Ranking received its weekly update on Monday, they net-gained 340 points towards a new score of 4,460 and climbed five positions from number 30 to number 25. Cottafava & Dal Corso’s previous high as a pair was the 29^th place they hit in December.

The other two medalists of the men’s tournament in Nayarit also climbed to new highs in the World Ranking. Runners-up Leon Luini & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands gained as many as 24 positions from their previous high as a pair, the 93^rd place, to number 69 on 2,420 points out of four qualifying tournaments. Bronze medalists Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov of Israel ascended seven spots and are now just below Cottafava & Dal Corso, in 26^th place on 4,240 points. Earlier in March, when they claimed another Challenge bronze in Bhubaneswar, Elazar & Cuzmiciov reached their previous high in the ranking, number 28.

The expiration of the Quintana Roo Elite points also affected some teams positioned higher in the chart, like Argentina’s Tomas Capogrosso & Nicolas Capogrosso, who dropped out of the top 10 despite a fourth-place finish in Nayarit last week, and allowed others like France’s Remi Bassereau Daubas & Calvin Aye to reach a new high, eighth place, or like Germany’s Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickle to return among the best 10 in the world, without even competing in Mexico last week.

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking – Women

China’s Yan Xu & Xia Xinyi, who the women’s gold in Nayarit, netted the full 800 points and rose 22 spots to number 61 on a score of 2,500 points from four qualifying participations.

Silver medalists Verena Figueira & Thainara Feitosa of Brazil improved to a new total of 1,968 points, also out of four tournaments played as a duo, which propelled them 43 positions to number 77.

Nayarit bronze medalists Madelyne Anderson & Alaina Chacon of the United States added 720 points to the first 340 they had collected from the Tlaxcala Challenge a week earlier and are already up in position 143.

The team that stopped just short of making the Nayarit podium, fourth-placed Germans Melanie Paul & Lea Kunst, also stopped just short of making the top 10 in the World Ranking. Still, their 21^st place is 14 positions above their previous high from a week earlier.

Nobody entered or exited the women’s top 10 this week, but the expiration of the Quintana Roo Elite points stirred some movements within. Most importantly, Thamela Coradello & Victoria Lopes overtook their Brazilian compatriots Carol Solberg & Rebecca Cavalcanti into the second place.

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